Customer Reviews

Dance Dance Dance: A Novel

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

A sheep-man sits in a hotel room and operates a switchboard connecting the lonely, drifting narrator to a web of unforgottable individuals. The sheep-man's room is full of books about, well, sheep, and the narrator mostly experiences reality with the aid of his thirteen-year-old sort-of girlfriend. Logs of days spent "lolling" on the beach, wonderful descriptions of pizza, allusions to Boy George and the Talking Heads, and the sense of frantically trying to escape something (or is it find something?) all combine to make a novel that is not plotted, but choreographed.

Dance Dance Dance is electrifying, captivating, and intense -- and it's pretty brainy too, much like Murakami's characters. The narrator's perspective is standard Murakami: the slightly dreamy, out-of-place 30ish man trying to reason with a world that seems stranger by the minute. Assumptions constantly fall, and no one is sure what or whom to believe.

Yet the strange-goings on are the only thing rescuing the narrator from the miasma of ennui that comes from having rejected the dream of being a "salaryman" with a family and a linear, predictable lifestyle. This is a novel about staring out into the unknown -- and staring deeply into that unknown, it seems Murakami is saying, is the only way to find meaning if we reject the traditional lives that have been prearranged for us.

The only slightly negative thing I can say about this novel is that the plot and the characters have uncanny similarities to those in The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. It almost seems as if Murakami had one outline of a novel, which could go two different ways, and made one into the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, and the other into this book. The narrator's voice, and many of the supporting characters, are exactly the same, as are several plot elements.

Overall, this is significant, and highly enjoyable literature. It manages to ask deep questions about reality, fate, relationships, family, and life, while still packing the thrills of something much more pulpish.

Far superior to its successor, the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, this book wonderfully concludes the story of a protagonist started with "Hear The Wind Sing," "Pinball 1973," and "A Wild Sheep Chase." In this book, the protagonist, a self-employed loner who lives outside the "normal" conventions of the Japanese salaryman and society, sets out on a quest to find his girlfriend from "A Wild Sheep Chase." (For those who have not read "A Wild Sheep Chase," I will not ruin for you the circumstances that set this off). For the first few chapters, the protagonist is alone, walking the streets of Hokkaido, sitting in bars by himself and "contemplating the ashtray" (there must be tons of loners out there who can appreciate this) until eventually clues, both supernatural and other, take him to Tokyo and Hawaii, and introduce a slew of unforgettable, well written, deep characters. Such characters include Yuki, the troubled 13 year old psychic who is far superior to the undeveloped clone of May Kasahara in the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, the actor Gotanda, who can portray your life better than you can, the unforgettable detectives Bookish and Fisherman...the list goes on and on. What this book is, basically, is the fulfillment of the personal quest. It is a book that will be best appreciated by people who have been loners, stand removed from the "norms" of society of a wife, a 9 to 5 job in an impersonal office, two kids, a pet, and perhaps even a dedication to any particular religion, and have, as such, culivated a deep level of observation, a bit of an alienation to and from society, and perhaps a personal subconscious inkling/longing for a supernatural happenstance such as The Dolphin Hotel that make up for a lack of belief in any conventional religious notion accepted by the masses...

I picked up Murakami on a whim. I had been exploring Japanese literature, but my preferences were for the ancient works. Yet, something about it spoke to me. Maybe it was the wild title, maybe it was the synopsis, maybe it was fate.

What I found was a strange, surreal noir. At heart, it's a detective story. The search for a long-lost love (so cliche that it becomes subversive and the subplots seem to take center stage) in a place out of memory that isn't what it seems. The narrator wanders through a dreamland of wild experiences pulled from Murakami's imagined reality that just drips with an old-school sensibility. It almost seems perfect for a 30's or 40's era noir film, pulpy and beautiful.

What I liked most about it was how empty it all felt. His narrator is a loner, and the world that was built emphasized this. It just seems a lonely book, and all the characters seem motivated by loneliness. It's a great atmospheric, not overly dramatic but understated in the dry humor in the piece.

What seems most interesting is how the narrators various threads of story all eventually come back to the main plot, which becomes muddled throughout the tale. It all comes back to point out the interconnectedness of people, the power of consequence and luck in determining destiny, and a kind of grand design where it all seems to work out without any reason why (even when working out isn't the best option). It's not deus ex machina, it's how real life seems to work, and Murakami captures that chaotic purpose beautifully.

I've gone on to read other Murakami, but this one stands out in my mind, being the first. It's a sequel to a book I'm not sure I want to read, but it's complete on its own. I don't want to know about the narrator's previous adventures, that's how good this book is at telling this man's story. A wonderful tale, highly recommended.

I do not have much to add to the other positive reviews.
The negative ones are just silly (of course apart from the objection against abridging the English edition; that annoys me too, but let's not hold it against HM, and I would not have noticed anyway).
I like the comparison made somewhere that this is like Kafka in a Chandler novel, but I have to object to the notion that Kafka had no sense of humour. Please read the Hunger Artist or even the Verwandlung again, what are they if not hilarious in a black sort of way.
The protagonist of Dancex3 is sometimes like a Philip Marlowe without a mission, but that is a fleeting impression. He starts off looking for somebody, but gives up quickly. Marlowe wouldn't do that.
Nothing sticks. The novel might be a normal noir mystery, if it did not escalate into esoterics once in a while. One expects that from HM.
I liked the names of Yuki's disfunctional parents: the father's name, the writer's, is an anagram of HM's, and the mother is called Rain, like Barry Eisler's half Japanese killer. Coincidence?
I liked the encounters with unexpected developments: the receptionist, the actor, the writer, of course the brat. One of HM's strengths, developing people relationships off the beaten track.
What I mean by my review title: reading Murakami is like listening to Coltrane or the Stones or Brahms, it does not matter so much what the plot is, nor who the characters are, it is a purpose in itself. You don't need to learn anything from it, nor is it to be used in the sense of the protagonist's frequent spouts of "killing time". Of course it is not shoveling snow either.
It is what it is. A way of life. Like meditation.
Great stuff.

I finally found out why I love Murakami. Bear with me, because I'm still molding this idea... Murakami's protaganists are, for the most, not the typical Japanese sterotype. They don't work, or they little, or they work sporadically. They rarely follow tradition. They steep themselves in Western culture, trying to become Western. They reject their Eastern mindset without ever rejecting the East. They stay fundementally Japanese, no matter how hard they try to push away from that life. I think that many Americans feel this same way (flip-flopped, obviously). How many Westerners have become Buddhists? How many steep themselves in the insane culture of modern japan (wether it be Anime, video games, J-pop, whatever)? How many long for the East and reject the West without ever leaving the mindset? Many. I'm one. Murakami's books are the perfect relic of modern life. In our interconnected world (connected by Wind-up Birds and Sheep Men alike), cultural identity is something we long to shrugh off. Yet we can't. We dance in a never-ending sprial of life.

Dance Dance Dance is just as good as Wind-up Bird. Unlike Wild Sheep Chase, it does not have that brevity, almost short story quality that marred A Wild Sheep Chase for me (which isn't to say I didn't like it..just the opposite, it is certainly one of my favorite books, just not on par with Dance or Wind-up Bird). There are certain things we need to forgive Murakami for though. He certainly has a stock leading man. But so did Hemmingway, and no one is cursing him for it. The Hemmingway-Hero is a legit archetype now. Murakami repeatedly uses the same themes and motifs throughout his work. Well, so what? What great author hasn't? Pynchon and Dellio consistently do, but no one questions their ranking amongst the great writers. Murakami is a great writer, of incredible depth and insight. He is one fo the greatest treasures of the International literature scene, and there is no reason whatsoever that we should question his validity as a writer of genius Literate Fiction with a capital LF.

I know "A Wild Sheep Chase" (WSC) is a revered Murakami book and that "Dance, Dance, Dance" (DDD) is widely regarded as not in the same league as WSC, or the "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" or "Kafka on the Shore" but I thought DDD a much better book than WSC, superior also to "South of the Border, West of the Sun" and "Sputnik Sweetheart" and "Norwegian Wood" and up there with "Kafka on the Shore" though falling a bit short of "Wind-Up Bird" which is still Murakami's masterpiece I'd say. As far as DDD, the homage to Raymond Chandler is obvious and much appreciated. If Philip Marlow had grown up in Japan, listened to a lot of 60's classic rock (as well as the classical music Marlow fancied) and also liked swimming, cooking, housekeeping, and post-modern irony and metaphysics, then bang--you'd have the anonymous narrator of DDD! The beauty of this book is in the laconic, ironic, satirical, yet also compassionate, decent, and kind narrator. Those are tough qualities to combine, and Murakami pulls it off. The anonymous narrator, much like Chandler's Philip Marlowe, is a guy you'd love to hang out with. He's funny, laid back, honest, and basically a decent guy. He can admit his faults and while he's a little self-centered, he'd own up to that fault in a hurry, and compensates for it by being very patient and very loyal to his friends and fair to his enemies. He doesn't hate, doesn't want what he doesn't have, doesn't aspire to be famous or rich, doesn't hold grudges, and can see the world from the other guy's perspective. I would argue it is the essential likeableness of Murakami's narrators that makes him so readable. And the narrator of DDD is one of the most endearing of all of them, I would argue.

As others have noted, I don't think the plot is the reason you read Murakami, so I'm not going to go into that much. Suffice it to say it will keep you turning the pages to find out what happens to them all and the ending doesn't disappoint. But it's for the style, the tone, the questions he raises, the way he makes you look at your life from a whole new angle that you read Murakami and why you should read DDD. Of course, the re-appearance of the Sheep Man in DDD is just a joy difficult to describe. Has anyone else noticed that there is a reference to Siberia (and how awful it is) in almost every Murakami book? Along with swimming, cats, and parallel universes, Siberia is another recurring Murakami theme, though one seemingly less noticed. It's brief, but there in DDD...

Murakami seems to write two different novels: straight up love triangles (if there is such a thing) like "Norwegian Wood", "South of the Border...", and "Sputnik Sweetheart", or metaphysical detective stories like "Wild Sheep Chase," "Hardboiled Wonderland..." "Dance, Dance, Dance", "Wind-up Bird Chronicle" and "Kafka on the Shore". I've noticed some reviewers like the love stories more, some like the detective stories more, and some, like me, enjoy them both. I think "Wind-up Bird..." is the best liked of all Murakami novels because it is kind of the best of both worlds, mainly detective story, but also love triangle with a parallel universe, all melded into an interesting and enjoyable single narrative. "Kafka.." comes close to doing the same thing, but not as smoothly. I think "Dance, Dance, Dance" integrates a compelling love triangle with a solid metaphysical detective story. So if you like Murakami, don't skip "Dance, Dance, Dance," just because it doesn't usually get the raves the other books get...

I don't understand why people read Murakami's books with an expectation of a strong plot going on. I mean seriously. Why? Murakami's books are fragile and just really random. I find that he stresses more on the idea of his books than forcing a straight plotline. The central point of Murakami's books generally tend to be rather cliche. Human interaction, life, death etc. But his prose is just so stunning and mesmerizing. Who enjoys a Picasso painting to appreciate the accuracy of human anatomy? What unrealistic expectations. Gosh. Murakami's books are certainly a sort of a hit and miss thing, since you either hate it or you love it. I find the entire fun is the journey of the reading and enjoying the fragility of his ideas. I definitely don't ever expect a straight plot out of Murakami. And I'm glad he writes as such. It's refreshing now, in repetitive and monotonous "journey of life" plot-lines where characters, plots and dialogue have just gotten stale.

Two things are sure about Murakami's writing now:
1. It's out of this world. Every book leaves something and changes me.
2. I am having troubles describing it.

Most amazing is how you are able to synchronize with the character's state of mind. All this calmness and deepness, you think that you should first get into similar mood in order to read, but once you start, your mood is itself shaped by the book.

There are already a number of helpful substantive reviews of this novel, and I will not repeat that discussion here.

But what the previous reviews do not make clear is that the English translation of "Dance, Dance, Dance" significantly abridges the original Japanese text. The casual reader would have no way of knowing this, because the only reference to this fact is the cryptic notation on the copyright page that the novel was not only translated but also "adapted" from the Japanese.

How much of the Japanese text was "adapted" away? My rough estimate is that something like 20% of the original has been cut. While I have not done a detailed study of what has been deleted and what has been retained, a few spot comparisons show a rather troubling and cavalier editorial approach that retains the broad strokes of the novel's structure but tramples much of Murakami's carefully-developed texture.

Anyway, the upshot is that if you can comfortably do so, try to read "Dance, Dance, Dance" in a non-English unabridged translation. If you can't, the novel is still worth reading in English -- but you are getting a bit of a Cliff Notes version of the original.

I would still rate 'South of the Border, West of the Sun' more highly, but this is Murakami's most flat-out entertaining novel. Although it's billed as a sequel to Wild Sheep Chase, and it is about the same character, _all_ of Murakami's novels seem to be about the same basic everyman character, and reading Sheep Chase first isn't neccesary (I read this before I read Sheep Chase). Still, Sheep Chase, as Murakami's first novel, provides a good point of reference.

The characters in Dance, Dance, Dance are almost exponentially more vibrant than those in Sheep Chase, from the bored, occasionally clairvoyant young girl who might have stepped out of a Salinger novel, to the plucky one-armed American poet. There's an almost cartoonish (not in at all a bad way) quality to these people; they stand out that much, and are that sharply drawn. The intriguing criticism of genius offered in Sheep Chase recurs, more subtly and kindly, in the form of a brilliant woman photographer who happens to be a very poor mother. Murakami is also unexpectedly kind to another character, the superificial actor Gotanda, who reveals a sharply human side. In the end, that may be exactly it about this novel; a sense of warmth and quiet joy underneath everything, even the more sinister events, which not many novels of this modernist type can muster. Every stroke of good fortune seems deserved, and every tragedy is lamented.